Climate Risk Assessment and Adaptation Considerations for Municipal Governance

Within the last 10 years, four of the 10 most extreme and extremely expensive weather- related disasters in Canada have occurred in Alberta, and climate modelling for Western Canada projects increasing changes and weather extremes. Changing and extreme conditions will continue to affect many aspects of municipal operations over the next 10 to 30 years. The major risks and impacts of changing climate conditions directly affecting municipalities involve infrastructure performance, increasing water stress, land use change and asset management. Long-term seasonal temperature and precipitation changes punctuated by extreme weather conditions are a costly combination affecting local governments and communities. Alberta has a diverse range of climate risks, and risk assessment, adaptation and disaster response needs to reflect this diversity. Surveys done in 2019 and 2021 identified common barriers affecting municipal effectiveness in managing and adapting to climate risk which include: available staff time; access to climate risk and adaptation expertise; access to financial resources; and access to locally relevant and credible climate informationand data. Municipalities in Alberta with populations less than 10,000 are more likely to experience these barriers than larger and urban municipalities better positioned to have access to the specialized resources necessary. All Alberta local authorities are required to have an emergency management plan to respond to extreme weather events of relatively short duration. However, longer term, extreme shifts in seasonal temperatures and precipitation are projected over the next 20to 30 years that will continue to impact municipal land use planning, water availability and infrastructure costs. Climate risk and adaptation need to be integrated into municipal plans, infrastructure maintenance, capital budgets and asset management to strengthen local resilience. Municipalities in Alberta have a provincial statutory framework that can address climate risk assessment and adaptation. Eight opportunities are identified that can be used within Alberta’s municipal government model to increase municipal effectiveness including: greater use of Intermunicipal Collaboration Frameworks (ICFs) and development of a Climate Adaptation Research and Decision Support (CARDS) network to provide multi- disciplinary decision support to local government decision-makers in different geographic areas of Alberta

Climate Risk Assessment and Adaptation Considerations for Municipal Governance

Within the last 10 years, four of the 10 most extreme and extremely expensive weather- related disasters in Canada have occurred in Alberta, and climate modelling for Western Canada projects increasing changes and weather extremes. Changing and extreme conditions will continue to affect many aspects of municipal operations over the next 10 to 30 years. The major risks and impacts of changing climate conditions directly affecting municipalities involve infrastructure performance, increasing water stress, land use change and asset management. Long-term seasonal temperature and precipitation changes punctuated by extreme weather conditions are a costly combination affecting local governments and communities. Alberta has a diverse range of climate risks, and risk assessment, adaptation and disaster response needs to reflect this diversity. Surveys done in 2019 and 2021 identified common barriers affecting municipal effectiveness in managing and adapting to climate risk which include: available staff time; access to climate risk and adaptation expertise; access to financial resources; and access to locally relevant and credible climate information and data. Municipalities in Alberta with populations less than 10,000 are more likely to experience these barriers than larger and urban municipalities better positioned to have access to the specialized resources necessary. All Alberta local authorities are required to have an emergency management plan to respond to extreme weather events of relatively short duration. However, longer term, extreme shifts in seasonal temperatures and precipitation are projected over the next 20 to 30 years that will continue to impact municipal land use planning, water availability and infrastructure costs. Climate risk and adaptation need to be integrated into municipal plans, infrastructure maintenance, capital budgets and asset management to strengthen local resilience. Municipalities in Alberta have a provincial statutory framework that can address climate risk assessment and adaptation. Eight opportunities are identified that can be used within Alberta’s municipal government model to increase municipal effectiveness including: greater use of Intermunicipal Collaboration Frameworks (ICFs) and development of a Climate Adaptation Research and Decision Support (CARDS) network to provide multi- disciplinary decision support to local government decision-makers in different geographic areas of Alberta

Tissue Destruction Resulting from the Interaction of Cytotoxic T Cells and Their Targets a

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73703/1/j.1749-6632.1988.tb36330.x.pd

Modeling regional-scale wildland fire emissions with the wildland fire emissions information system

As carbon modeling tools become more comprehensive, spatial data are needed to improve quantitative maps of carbon emissions from fire. The Wildland Fire Emissions Information System (WFEIS) provides mapped estimates of carbon emissions from historical forest fires in the United States through a web browser. WFEIS improves access to data and provides a consistent approach to estimating emissions at landscape, regional, and continental scales. The system taps into data and tools developed by the U.S. Forest Service to describe fuels, fuel loadings, and fuel consumption and merges information from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration on fire location and timing. Currently, WFEIS provides web access to Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) burned area for North America and U.S. fire-perimeter maps from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity products from the USGS, overlays them on 1-km fuel maps for the United States, and calculates fuel consumption and emissions with an open-source version of the Consume model. Mapped fuel moisture is derived from daily meteorological data from remote automated weather stations. In addition to tabular output results, WFEIS produces multiple vector and raster formats. This paper provides an overview of the WFEIS system, including the web-based system functionality and datasets used for emissions estimates. WFEIS operates on the web and is built using open-source software components that work with open international standards such as keyhole markup language (KML). Examples of emissions outputs from WFEIS are presented showing that the system provides results that vary widely across the many ecosystems of North America and are consistent with previous emissions modeling estimates and products

Expressions 2000

https://openspace.dmacc.edu/expressions/1019/thumbnail.jp

A View from the Past Into our Collective Future: The Oncofertility Consortium Vision Statement

Today, male and female adult and pediatric cancer patients, individuals transitioning between gender identities, and other individuals facing health extending but fertility limiting treatments can look forward to a fertile future. This is, in part, due to the work of members associated with the Oncofertility Consortium. The Oncofertility Consortium is an international, interdisciplinary initiative originally designed to explore the urgent unmet need associated with the reproductive future of cancer survivors. As the strategies for fertility management were invented, developed or applied, the individuals for who the program offered hope, similarly expanded. As a community of practice, Consortium participants share information in an open and rapid manner to addresses the complex health care and quality-of-life issues of cancer, transgender and other patients. To ensure that the organization remains contemporary to the needs of the community, the field designed a fully inclusive mechanism for strategic planning and here present the findings of this process. This interprofessional network of medical specialists, scientists, and scholars in the law, medical ethics, religious studies and other disciplines associated with human interventions, explore the relationships between health, disease, survivorship, treatment, gender and reproductive longevity. The goals are to continually integrate the best science in the service of the needs of patients and build a community of care that is ready for the challenges of the field in the future

Genetic effects on gene expression across human tissues

Characterization of the molecular function of the human genome and its variation across individuals is essential for identifying the cellular mechanisms that underlie human genetic traits and diseases. The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project aims to characterize variation in gene expression levels across individuals and diverse tissues of the human body, many of which are not easily accessible. Here we describe genetic effects on gene expression levels across 44 human tissues. We find that local genetic variation affects gene expression levels for the majority of genes, and we further identify inter-chromosomal genetic effects for 93 genes and 112 loci. On the basis of the identified genetic effects, we characterize patterns of tissue specificity, compare local and distal effects, and evaluate the functional properties of the genetic effects. We also demonstrate that multi-tissue, multi-individual data can be used to identify genes and pathways affected by human disease-associated variation, enabling a mechanistic interpretation of gene regulation and the genetic basis of diseas

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Genetic effects on gene expression across human tissues

Characterization of the molecular function of the human genome and its variation across individuals is essential for identifying the cellular mechanisms that underlie human genetic traits and diseases. The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project aims to characterize variation in gene expression levels across individuals and diverse tissues of the human body, many of which are not easily accessible. Here we describe genetic effects on gene expression levels across 44 human tissues. We find that local genetic variation affects gene expression levels for the majority of genes, and we further identify inter-chromosomal genetic effects for 93 genes and 112 loci. On the basis of the identified genetic effects, we characterize patterns of tissue specificity, compare local and distal effects, and evaluate the functional properties of the genetic effects. We also demonstrate that multi-tissue, multi-individual data can be used to identify genes and pathways affected by human disease-associated variation, enabling a mechanistic interpretation of gene regulation and the genetic basis of disease

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival